Sacked CTO John Linwood takes legal action against the BBC over failed DMI

Derek du Preez |
Feb. 3, 2014

Sacked CTO John Linwood is taking legal action against the BBC over his involvement in the broadcaster's failed £100 million Digital Media Initiative (DMI).

"It affected the way the content and metadata would have to be loaded into the Digital Archive. It meant we would have to interface with different systems. It affected file based delivery which was dependent on Production Tools, it affected how we would store the content and capture metadata."

He added: "The design and architecture of the Digital Archive depended heavily on processes and functionality that was delivered in Production Tools."

Linwood claims that he questioned the decision because he had been hearing from the business and different production teams that were actively testing Production Tools that they did want it and would use it.

He adds that Production Tools is now mothballed and the BBC's vision for the technology solution it wants has changed. "I believe that the DMI project would have been delivered and the benefits realised by now if the business had wanted to take Production Tools live," said Linwood.

The BBC is also currently using software and hardware assets it has supposedly written off, according to Lindwood's evidence. He claims that the BBC made inaccurate statements to the Public Accounts Committee stating that, in effect, the "kit doesn't work" and is "worth nothing".

A National Audit Office report released this week revealed that the BBC cancelled the DMI without examining the technical feasibility or cost of completing it. Whilst a recent PwC report, commissioned by the BBC, found there the focus and priorities of DMI were on technology build, rather than enabling business-wide change at the BBC.